Fondue

As I mentioned earlier, the weather in Texas has really been insane. It was high 70’s on Christmas Day! I mean, it hardly ever snows in Texas,  but people were wearing shorts and flip-flops whilst doing holiday shopping! It was unnerving. Anyway, I woke up today and its finally cold. It was 39, with a low of 22. Found out that it only applies to Fredericksburg and the Hill Country areas in general. The rest of Texas, specially Houston and south, south-east, still have not gotten the memo that winter has started since last week.

It was perfect day to laze around the house. We had a nice coffee by the fireplace and basically had no plans but to chill for the rest of the day. For lunch I decided to dish out my Christmas left-overs and noted that I still had some opened cheese. It’s fondue time!

I usually make my fondue using three cheeses in equal parts: gruyere, gouda and emmental. I didn’t have emmental in my fridge so I opted for blue cheese instead. for wine, Ideally, it should be Sauvignon Blanc. I chugged the last drop last night so I had to use Cuvee Blanc.

use about 4 oz of each cheese and 1/2 cup of white wine
use about 4 oz of each cheese and 1/2 cup of white wine

Grate the cheeses as finely as humanly possible before dropping them to the simmering wine. You can add 1 T butter and 2T of flour just to keep it from getting too sticky. I won’t be needing that for this batch because I am using blue cheese which tend to be runny when heated. Mix well until all the cheese melts. By the way, a fondue pot is ideal, but in this case, my fondue pot is back at the Beast (main house) so I’m using a double boiler. If you don’t have that either, make sure you stir the pot constantly to prevent it from sticking in the bottom.

This is three-cheese focaccia. It's good to use bread that's a little bit dense. Cut it in cubes.
This is three-cheese focaccia. It’s good to use bread that’s a little bit dense. Cut it in cubes.

As you can see, we’ve really been “roughing” it in Fredericksburg. I’m using barbecue skewers in lieu of my fondue skewers that  I left at home. It serves the purpose. After some gulps of the perfectly warmed gluhwein, everything seem right again!

image

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *